Pirate Jim profile picture

Pirate Jim

You know that feeling you get when you walk into a room and can't remember why you're there? That mu

About Me

It's a lovely day out. Here in the valley outside Quito (and in Quito too, so I'm told) we're enjoying a glorious and uncharacteristicly dry January (how very English of me, starting off with a note on the weather). I've been here for five months now, and so am used to the daily downpour at around three in the afternoon. I may even manage to keep my Galapagos tan at this rate.So anyway, hello. My name's Jim and I'm an English English teacher (no typo, I teach English and I'm from England - a proper teacher, mind: none of this TEFL nonsense). I like lots of music and lots of films and lots of other fabulous things, but mostly I like travelling. So I shall. Nice to see you. Thanks for dropping by. Do subscribe to my blog: it should be obvious from my very presence here that I crave the attention (speaking of which, you can follow my exploits all the better here: www.flickr.com/photos/jimonthemove)

My Interests

Travelling (defined by me - and this is by no means the definitive definition, just that which defines my own travels - as going to far-off foreign lands with no intention of ever really coming home to 'settle down'. This excludes in equal measure package holidays and the 'Gap Year')Doing Fun Things (going to sporting events, gigs, festivals, funfairs, the seaside and so forth)Learning New Things (anything really)Keeping Busy, Mentally and Physically (thinking too much, reading, writing, weight-training, running jumping climbing trees)

I'd like to meet:

Any bugger really. People with similar interests or completely different ones. Anyone. You.

Music:

Favourites: Wonderstuff, Arcade Fire, Carter USM, Killers, DJ Format, Jurassic 5, Gang Starr, Ned's Atomic Dustbin, Miss Black America, The Visions, Kanye West, Pop Will Eat Itself, Manics, Pulp, Blur, Ozomatli, Moloko, Borodin, Mozart, Puccini, Bizet, Beth Orton, Orbital, The Streets, The Delgados, Mr Scruff, The Proclaimers, Billy Bragg, Levellers, The Smiths, Blackalicious, The Killers, Gorillaz, and basically anyone who does what they do well, in pretty much any genre.

Movies:

Hero, Amelie, Monty Python's Holy Grail, South Park, Bladerunner, Casablanca, Goodfellas, Serenity, Training Day, Fight Club, LOTR, Lion King, Godfathers 1 and 2, Star Wars 4, 5 and 6, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Goonies, Batman (1989) and Batman Begins, Spiderman 2, Drunken Master, Matrix, Independence Day, Transformers the Movie, Starchaser, Kill Bill 1, Top Gun, The Rock, any Bond except the last 3 Brosnans and the middle Roger Moore ones (though the new one gets a bit lost in the last third I reckon), Indiana Jones 1 and 3, Reservoir Dogs, Jackie Brown, Pulp Fiction, Super Troopers, Full Metal Jacket, North by Northwest, Vertigo, Rear Window, Twelve Angry Men, It's a Wonderful Life, Gremlins, Ghostbusters, Labyrinth, A Knight's Tale, Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet, Usual Suspects, 21 Grams, City of God, Memento, The Grudge, King Kong (any), Goonies, Inside Man, Hotel Rwanda.

Television:

I watch more these days, cos I live so far from home and so far from anywhere else to. So, here's some from now and before: House, Smallville, 24, Buffy (except the first and last seasons), Simpsons, English/European Football (that's soccer, kids), News (channel 4, preferably), Scrubs, Two and Half Men, Star Treks TNG and DS9, Babylon 5, Stargate SG1, Frasier, The Office, Top Gear, Cracker, Extras, Spaced, Richard and Judy.

Books:

My faves would be: Waterland by Graham Swift; Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card; Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien; The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks; Dead Babies by Martin Amis; The Constant Gardener by John Le Carre; Brave New World by Aldous Huxley; Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger; Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. But I don't read a whole lot. Kind of strange, what with me being an English teacher and all. Ah well...

My Blog

Wildlife - Appended

The Anglian Teaching Lizard - A solitary creature. It's silence and aloof nature can often lead to its insecurity being mistaken for arrogance (though occassional its arrogance is mistaken for insecur...
Posted by Irish Pirate Jim on Thu, 11 Jan 2007 01:02:00 PST

Wildlife

A curious side-effect of having a cleaner is that you actually end up keeping your home tidier than you would normally on account of not wanting to reveal the true depth of your slobbishness. I scrape...
Posted by Irish Pirate Jim on Tue, 09 Jan 2007 12:06:00 PST

Ecuador vs. Colombia

Bogotá Rugby 7s, November 4th 2006, 3.30pm: Quito Nomads vs. Dragones Blancos. It's very hot, and we're at altitude (though not as high as Quito, 7000ft is high enough). We've sat and waited for 4 hou...
Posted by Irish Pirate Jim on Tue, 07 Nov 2006 08:56:00 PST

Me Me Me Me Me

So that dose of reality I was talking about a few posts back? That turned up on Saturday. I dunno if anyone spotted this, or whether it got on the news back home, but back in August, a couple of ...
Posted by Irish Pirate Jim on Tue, 26 Sep 2006 08:31:00 PST

English Lessons

I've spent the last two days getting to know my new classroom. It's lovely. A little warm in the afternoons perhaps, but only really enough to make it cosy. I've been chucking around (and chucking out...
Posted by Irish Pirate Jim on Wed, 30 Aug 2006 08:24:00 PST

Class

It's not so hot this morning. I was woken up by my name being called (my name being Diego, of course) by my landlady; apparently I had a phone call. So I pulled on my dressing gown and scampered out a...
Posted by Irish Pirate Jim on Wed, 16 Aug 2006 09:43:00 PST

Pimp My Hoodie

Ideas for cheap new cable TV shows: Looking to add a little 'razzamataz' to a Scottish waterway? Pimp My Clyde. Friends unimpressed when you show them photos from your holidays projected onto your li...
Posted by Irish Pirate Jim on Fri, 28 Jul 2006 08:21:00 PST

Superman Returns

Went to see Superman Returns last night. As you might know I'm far more of a Batman person myself, but I'd read a couple of decent reviews and the trailer looked good. The thing I was looking forward ...
Posted by Irish Pirate Jim on Wed, 19 Jul 2006 02:06:00 PST

Late Registration

Only last week at a wedding I was asked by somebody what 'blogging' was, to which I replied that it's a practise practised by self-important toss-monkeys who believe that the world has the right, nay...
Posted by Irish Pirate Jim on Mon, 17 Jul 2006 12:38:00 PST